Handy Expressions

Some expression to learn that comes handy when traveling to Korea or speaking to a Korean:

Greetings

Hi, Hello or Good Day – 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)

Goodbye (to someone leaving) – 안녕히 가세요 (annyeonghi kaseyo)

Goodbye (to someone staying) – 안녕히 계세요 (annyeonghi kyeseyo)

How are you? – 잘 지내요? (jal jinaeyo)

I’m fine, thank you – 잘 지내, 고마워요 (Jal jinae, komawoyo)

Thank you – 감사합니다 (Kamsahamnida), 고마워요 (Komawoyo)

안녕 (annyeong) comes in handy as a expression can mean, hi, hello or bye. It’s casual expression though so you can’t say it to someone older or someone you don’t know personally, it may be impolite to do so.

Meeting Someone

After saying hi and hello, its just right to say something like it’s nice to meet you. Here are also some expressions you can use along with hi and hello.

알았어 (arasseo or araso) means I know or I understand or I get it.
네 (ne) is also something you will always hear it sort of fill up the conversation it means yes but i can also mean i understand or i get it. you are hearing it right this is sometimes pronounced a ‘dae’. they can’t explain it either but that is how it goes =)

Annyeonghaseyo! Nae ireumeun Nadia yeyo. Bangga! Bangga! I just discovered your blog and it is nice meeting someone with passion for learning Hangukeo and Hangeul. I am interested to learn Korean as well, and therefore I find your blog very useful. Keep it up! 🙂

Aigooo .. that was really good … Chumaal Kamsahamnidaa
keundae .. it has been a while for me learning korean .. keuraesseooo .. learning Verbs hagoshipo .. jinjjaa hagoshiipo .. can you do an article ’bout that .. cheebaaaaaaaal ??
^_^

I think some of the statement is not in proper Korean, I mean it maybe a style of writing that is not formal or casual. I don’t understand it. Only the first statement jonguk do you know me? Why….didn’t get the rest.

Hi, just wanna ask omawa or gomawa is it thank you? And mianhae is that im sorry? And bun means minute? And chomada means second? Sorry for so many question im just eager to learn hangul .. And last what is saranghamida and otoshiminika?

Hi, “Yummychococha” and Jane! 잘 있었어요? (Jal iss-eoss-eo-yo?, Have you been well?) Just some more explanation on the expression 배고파요 (bae-go-pa-yo). The word 배 (bae) means “stomach” and the word 고파요 (go-pa-yo) comes from the descriptive verb 고프다 (go-peu-da), which means “to be hungry”.고파요 (go-pa-yo) is the verb which has been conjugated from the dictionary form into the present tense, standard politeness level. Together, the expression 배고파요 (bae-go-pa-yo) means “stomach is hungry”, and is commonly used to mean “I am hungry”. If we are super hungry, we can say 배고파 죽겠어요 (bae-go-pa juk-gess-eo-yo), which means “I am hungry to death”, or “I am very very hungry!” 😀

Hi, Vicky! Nice to meet you here in Jane’s Hangeul blog. “Gomawo” means “Thanks” and it is in the intimate politeness level. A more polite form will be “Gomawoyo” and a more formal version will be “Gomabseumnida”. “Mianhae” is an expression used to mean “I am sorry”. If you want to say “I love you” to your boyfriend, you can say “Saranghae” (intimate politeness level), since you are in close relation with your bf. “Saranghamnida” also means “I love you”, but it is in the formal politeness level, and is used when you wish to be extra polite. 🙂

This is a very great!! I can learn Korean and hangul as well…actually, I am from Indonesia..and it is very difficult to learn Korean here..this website is totally awesome!!glad to know this..and thanks for helping me learning Korean..(∩_∩)

Annyeonghaeseyo, yeoreobun! Je ireumeun Nadia imnida! (Hello, everyone! My name is Nadia!). Nice meeting people here, who shares my interest of learning Hangeul. I would just like to share my opinion with regards to learning Hangeul. In addition to learning the consonants and vowels, it is also important to know that Korean verbs are conjugated into formal, standard and informal politeness levels. For example, the verb “saranghada” means “to love”. When it is conjugated into the different politeness levels, it becomes “saranghamnida” (formal), “saranghaeyo” (standard) and “saranghae” (intimate). Also, Korean has three major tenses, which is present, past and future tenses. That’s it for now. Annyeonghigyeseyo!

Mannaseo bangabseumnida, Vicky. It is nice meeting people who are passionate of learning Korean as I am. I admit that I started learning Korean the wrong way, as I learned the Romanized Korean first without learning Hangeul. However, it is a good thing that I picked up Hangeul along the way, and that speeds up learning the pronunciation. From the Hangeul characters, “Cheoun haru bonaeyo” is actually spelled as “Joh-eun ha-ru bo-nae-yo”. However, when we speak at normal speed, the “h” in “joheun” becomes silent. 😀

Annyeonghaseyo (I’m assuming you’re older than me)! This site was really helpful but I need your help on a bit of translation. I hope that’s okay (^^) Today’s sorta of one of a friend’s birthday, and I wanted to write him a letter in Korean. He’s older than me, so everything must be formal right? I wanted to write:

Happy birthday (name)! Did you eat seaweed soup? Haha, I know you must be really happy on this day so spend the day well with the members! I hope that you will always stay happy and if you don’t, E.L.F.s will be there for you (^^) Happy birthday and Happy New Year(name)!

Dear Janey, could you please help or tell me how to erase all notification from ‘hangul handy expression’ for me? Because last year in December,when I first posted something about how to say ‘congratulation’ in korean, you deleted my post..
I would like to deleted all connection or link or any notification from this website!!
so please, even if u delete this post again, at least don’t bombard my email with your notifications!!
Thanks in advance!

miwa you are not subscribed to my blog and also you can always remove notification from emails that wordpress is sending you. likewise, i don’t delete comments here even those with the nastiest comment unless AKISMET marked your comment as spam. i don’t review spam comments.

About neh vs. deh, I saw another blog where it was explained that yeh was used when speaking to an older person formally, neh was jondaetmal for speaking to whomever you would speak jondaetmal to, and deh was still less formal, usually used by children.

However, in dramas people often use neh instead of yeh when speaking to elders in professional and family situations, and adults sometimes use deh when speaking to other adults (usually in a setting where they are indicating submissiveness, such as to an angry boss or elder), so I don’t know if this is accurate, but thought I’d pass it along. I have noticed on Korean news programs, the anchors will often alternate between yeh, neh and deh when encouraging along a correspondent, or analyst, so maybe these things aren’t so rigid.

I have a question for you- is there a Korean word that would have a similar meaning to the English suffix -phile (i.e., interested in or enthusiastic/a fan of)? I’m looking for a word or phrase that means something like “one who is interested in/enthusiastic about Korea (Korean culture).”

너 다른 사람을 사랑하면 제가 사랑해요. As you know i am not a native Korean speaker and is also learning the language. I am not so confident on this but this sentence is pronounced as –> no dareun sarameul saranghamyeon chega saranghaeyo. Direct translation is You who love someone else, i love you. This may sound awkward but i am sure the Korean person you are talking to will understand 🙂

,its too hard to learn korean and how to pr0n0unce it..throwback by everyone comment,
what is the difference betweEN The words and pr0nounciation.,is their always a silent leTter.?
For example..hangugeoro malhae juseyo
>would you give me sample of that?
Thanks.

with what i read there is really no silent letter in Hangul just that like English there are some pronunciation rules and nuisances. literally the ㅇ character is voiceless when its the first character in a block example is 양 (yang) but noticed that when it’s the final character the sound is ‘ng’.

hi I’m so glad I found this blog of yours. This will really help me introduce Hangul to my 1year old child.I’ve been training her to understand korean language at her early age to her advantage….so can for a start can I ask what is baby girl in Korean.

아기 (agi) is baby in general. most mothers call their little ones this way. for daughters they would call or refer them as 우리 딸 (uri ttal) it is ‘our daughter’ in direct translation. In Korean they use ‘uri’ to denote ‘my’ 🙂

안녕하세요 만마서 반갑습니다.
I’d like to ask you on how the sentence structure is when speaking. Like how the words are arranged so that the sentence makes sense . I’d really like to praise you for the help with the korean:D! You’re really good. I’m asking for this because I want to have a conversation with a person but can’t because I don’t know how the words are arranged.

THANK YOU!! I could kind of tell what that word meant by the context (as you said, it’s used a LOT), but it’s great to have it confirmed, and even better to see it spelled in Hangeul. I’ve been trying to track it down by entering my best guess in online translators for months. I think I was getting hung up because I used ㅜ instead of ㅡ.

do u think i am able to learn hangul without tutor. i mean, i only rely on internet and apps that i downloaded to learn hangul but most of them were in sino korean..what i want to learn was in jeju dialects. would this help?

Jane, do you happen to know if there is a Korean word or expression that is equivalent to “gold digger”? When I look up gold digger, I get the literal translation, which I don’t think carries the same implications in Korean. I found 된장녀 and 김치걸, but neither of those seems to have quite the same meaning, either. Also looking for the Korean equivalent of “Mama’s boy” – there has to be one, right? This is for something funny I’m working on, so the ruder, the better.

Probably you can say ‘Jega geunmyeonhan namjayeyo’. ‘Jega’ means ‘I’, ‘geunmyeonhan’ is hardworking which has been converted to adjective form, ‘namja’ means ‘man’ and ‘yeyo’ is the identification copula which means ‘is’. ‘yo’ is the politeness particle used in jondaetmal (polite language). Or if in banmal (casual language / informal), you can say ‘Naneun geunmyeonhan namjaya’. Basically it means ‘I am a hardworking man’.

Hope this helps. I am no expert, but I love Hangukeo (Korean) and I am still learning.

Anyong haseyo nanen Tosin ida.this site is a very wonderful one, I’ve been able to learn some korean words. Nomu Kamsahamnida jane. I am frm Nigeria, but wen I started watching korean movies I fell in love with d language so I decided to learn in any way I can. The only problem is d hangul part. I don’t seem grasp d technique to writing? Is it explainable here?

i am grateful and thankful for the person that discovered hangul…this blog has really helped me a lot in learning korean….kamasahamnida….for your great work….wish to learn more and more about hangul…..komowayo once again….i love this blog…

Hi, William. Perhaps you can say Bulgogihago bab juseyo. Basically it means ‘Please give me some bulgogi with rice’. The word hago means ‘and’, but it also can mean ‘with’ depending on the context. Bab is the word for ‘cooked rice’ whereas ‘ssal’ means ‘uncooked rice’. Juseyo is the imperative form of the verb juda which means ‘to give’ . yo is the politeness particle used in jondaetmal (standard and formal politeness levels in Korean). Do note that literal translation from English to Korean will make Korean sentences sound very unnatural. Basically ‘juseyo’ is used when you want to ask someone to do something for you in a polite manner. For example ‘dowa juseyo’ which means ‘please help me’ or ‘Maekju han jan juseyo’ which means ‘Please give me one glass of beer’. Hope this helps. 🙂

may i ask what is the hangul character for “ddu beoja” it means let’s meet again in very informal.. i can spell them but i have no korean characters in my sisters laptop and mine was damaged.. so i searchd it online tho all i saw was the other informal form… the ” 또 봐” “다음에 봐” …
도와주세요 선생님~(just copy paste these one since its searchable kekeke)

Hi I often hearing “ani godeun(Sounds like)” in Kdramas. But the subtitle is way different. It says of course not. But when I google it says different. What is the meaning of that “ani godeun(Sounds like)”

hello can you please help me translate the ff;
i love all your dramas especially emergency couple. I so love your role as Oh chang min. I will wait for your comeback . take good care of your health. I love you Choi jin hyuk!!

I was trying to sound out the hangul characters to go along with the pronunciation that you gave. There is a character that sort of looks like an upside down rounded A that I have been led to believe makes a soft p or b sound but I see the character in words like imnida where it is making an m sound so when I sounded out imnida I was saying ipnida. I thought the m sound was represented by the consonant that looks like a rectangle so I’m a little confused.

Annyeonghaseyo Jeny, (sorry for long post! Mianhe!)
You don’t know how excited i really am having come across this site because for so long a time i have tried looking around for help to learn Korean because i desire so much to learn it. I have only been trying to play it cool by watching so much Korean drama/movies while i get back to look for translations with some coming in Eng. Sub.
I was only here yesterday when i found this website and i’m sorry that i feel as though i am late because it seems like you are already far off with your students but i promise you to work hard so that i can get along really fast. Please help me out learn some good Korean Jeny because i got only you now to help me! Been also looking out for Korean friends to help me get along better but the few i have been getting would break it off because they feel they are really not so well off with English which is what i use on international basis. I would desire to have a beautiful chat with such friends so they may not leave me friendless!
Just hoping for your support however minimal it may be, i’ll be the most grateful. You may wonder why all the way from Uganda, i’m suddenly interested in Korean everything! (Ever felt a sudden desire for something Jeny?) thats it, i wanna be lingual and Korea extensively fascinates me with its pretty cool history, people and culture/traditions. Gonna be pleased hearing from you. Waiting for you!
Kamsahaminda Jeny-ssi!

Annyeonghaseyo Janey,
I’m having a problem with Google translations!! Some translations they give are quite different from what i read here!!
Should i quit the google translations??
Also I’m having a tough time with Hangul!! Where may i locate the Korean hangul characters and their pronounciations?
kamsahamnida.

hi… just new here.. can i have a request??? add the apologizing or sorry expression in hangul. that will be great and additional learning.. THANK YOU. i think i can learn hangul in an easy way.. this is very helpful… 🙂

Help me to understand korean well, because i love Bts or the korean group, and i wanted to know about what they are trying to see or how can i understand when i korean speak. Help please. 감 사 함 니 다 ! 😀

I heard this many times on Korean drama, “DE MARI” what does it mean. My Korean friend told me it’s bald hair and I bet it’s not appropriate to what I’ve heard on the drama. The drama was about two girls conversing and the girl said “She’s so beautiful…” (in Korean of course), and the other girl responded “De mari” It’s like she’s agreeing to what the girl said.

Hello, thank you so much for all you’ve posted. I’ve fallen in love with Korean and I’m trying to learn it through You tube videos and watching K-dramas (crazy, I know 🙂 ). I was wondering could you do a video so that the sounds can be heard?

Anyeonghaseyo!! Hi Janey. I just have a favor to ask you. can you please teach me, or maybe all of the readers how to speak formally to elder people, maybe a helpful column like you did for greeting and etc especially towards someone who will be our dad soon. it is actually like this, I’ve been dating a korean guy for about 8 month now, so he really into it and really want to bring me home to meet his parents. we talk to each other in English since my Korean is just a so-so. but unfortunately his dad can’t understand English, he just know a few words, a basic English. I try to learn it with my boyfriend (namja chingu isn’t it?) but I couldn’t get it cause the way he talk is super fast since he is Korean, if you know what I mean. it is so hard even to my ears. huhu I’m dying. help me Janey. He said just a basic one is quite okay, he’ll take care the rest of it in front of his dad. I need to prepare myself (x.x)

hi everybody…i really like korean language &culture .its simple compared to japanese or chinese..now i study korean &japanese..korean pronounciation is tough smhow…while japanese kanji can give you a headache..my qn z that can any chinese character be hanja? ..from tanzania here

“urineun jal jinaeyo” is “we are fine” is that right?
can i use that to answer someone older than me asking “JAL JINAESSEOYO”
or is there a formal form or honorific form for it?
and, can i add “dangsineunyo” to ask her the same question?
what’s the difference between “kamsahamnida” and “komawoyo”
which of the two can i use to say “thank u (for asking)”.

Hi, I want to ask, in kdramas I usually hear a word that sounds like “her” or “har” some sound between e and a, like to express surprise 😦 I don’t really know how to express it, but they usually say it when they are surprised but not in a nice way, like unbeliavable or something (although I think that particular one is daebak) I don’t know if anyone knows what I’m talking about or if someone could answer me…

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I am learning Korean, but when I match some characters with English sounds, they don’t match up with yours. For example, when doing so for 감사합니다, I got kamsihabnida, whereas you got kamsahamnida. Does the difference matter?